neglected to do one yesterday because i was at a different place doing math problems

we are on a hunt for all the differently named animals.

-what is the thematic tie between this and laboratory?-how do you avoid being unable to draw the last few cards in your deck if this is your only draw?-is there any card or type of card this works well with?l/l/

But with Hunting Party you don't even really need to draw your whole deck. Drawing your deck is just the most reliable way to play your payload every turn, and this basically ensures you get your payload every turn even if you can't trash all those Copper or whatever in the way.

Baker is a really good card to put in a Hunting Party stack. It adds a lot of reliability at hitting $8. The only question is whether another Hunting Party is better. I think you want (one) Baker after your second Hunting Party. Likewise, Butcher as your terminal silver should be good.

I've built some pretty insane engines with this and Black Market, little trashing needed.

Hunting party, like most Cornucopia cards, requires a lot of skill to use. If used right, it's way better than lab, though.

Does it really though? As far as I can tell, you just buy a ton of them, and then your deck is better.

I guess deciding when triggering the shuffle is worth it requires some skill. But it's probably not one of the most high-skill cards in Dominion.

It requires the skill of knowing when exactly to play it on a turn to avoid drawing something you don't want. I think a card that can't just be played whenever (and is just as effective) can be classified as a high-skill card. It feels a lot like Wandering Minstrel in that effect. It is a more high-skill elaboration of a simple theme.

Hunting Party, by existing on the board, helps engines so much that any non-engine strategy will have a hard time winning the game unless the engine is really bad or the other strategy is really good. Including Hunting Parties in the other strategy is not enough to make it really good, because Hunting Party doesn't help the other strategy even nearly as much as it helps the engine. That is because engine strategies are built to benefit from cycling, because they keep building the deck while other strategies are already greening. When you have cycling, your newly added cards will appear in your hand much sooner, which allows engine strategies to get really explosive once they reach the point where they can cycle through their entire deck every turn. If you're playing a strategy that greens instead of building the deck, the cycling is just going to cause your newly added green cards to appear in your hand much sooner, which is undesirable. Furthermore, digging for unique cards is a somewhat more useful effect for engines, because in the early game, you want to connect your cards (be it trashers with junk or splitters with terminal draw) because that's where the vast majority of your cycling power comes from anyway, and Hunting Party helps with that.

Well my example is kind of the BM for HP stacks, it's a benchmark. Usually you can improve on it.

Quite literally, because HP stacks are a form of big money (you spend your early turns buying cards that are powerful on their own and don't antisynergize with each other and then you green at BM speed). I guess you can call it "improving on it", but to word it with a little bit more clarity: usually you can go for an entirely different strategy and kick the HP stack player's ass.